Here’s a bit of free advice. Well, anything here is free but this is worth taking if you’re not too strong in the ‘wise‘ department. Don’t under any circumstances say “that’s nice, dear” to anyone unless you’re absolutely sure that ‘that‘ is actually ‘nice‘. If you say it just to be ‘nice‘ but haven’t checked whether it is actually nice, haven’t even heard what was actually said, or just making conversation… you’re getting yourself into hot water. Being told “that’s nice, dear” is not at all nice when ‘that‘ is anything but nice.

What does ‘that’s nice, dear‘ mean anyway? Nothing. It’s simply something to say when you can be bothered saying something real. In other words, it’s not worth saying, so don’t say it.

And just while we’re at it, forget about ever saying “I told you so“. That might seem obvious but I heard that one this week.

End of rant.

♦

It’s been a trying week in Cate’s world. A little too much of ‘Cate versus Cate’s mind’. A few ‘that’s nice,dear‘s didn’t go down too well, especially followed up by “I told you so“. They never do, but this week I just wasn’t in the mood for meaningless words. I would rather have had silence. Actually I always prefer silence. Silence in a wonderful thing… until you start thinking too much.

I know that it is often said that we should let go of the things we have no control over. But that is so hard. I have so much in my life right now over which I have no control, and actually letting some of them go is not an option. I’m the first to admit that I could let go of some of those things, the problem is that I don’t want to. Yes, mindfulness would work… if I wanted it to. That might sound crazy but I’m one of those people who likes to have worked everything out in my mind before I let it go. I want to understand the puzzle, understand what I could or couldn’t have done differently. I want to know that others in the situation are okay, and even if I have no control over that, I still want to work it all out in my mind so I can get some peace. If I simply let it all go, my mind might be easier in some respects but I feel like I don’t have closure.

For a moment, let’s go back to my last post, Claiming My Voice Back. It wasn’t the easiest to write, let alone press ‘publish‘. Once I had though, I began to feel pretty good. I had done it! It had taken me a year (minimum), but I had finally done it. That felt good. But then I started thinking, because in that situation of my atrociously awful internet relationship there are a whole heap of unanswered questions, which ultimately I have to simply let go. I’m never going to be able to know for sure. I know that, yet my mind that wants to ‘work everything out‘ wants the answers anyway. So by the next day my mind was spinning wildly. And frankly, it was making me emotionally sick.

It’s a bit like when you know you want some more ice cream, but you know you’ll explode if you eat anymore. You give in to one side of your brain, and end up later feeling sorry. I did this to myself. I made myself emotionally sick , yet I couldn’t stop trying to piece together the puzzle.

The other issue in ‘the things Cate can’t control‘ discussion, is those things that I might not be able to control, yet backing away isn’t an option. Just sometimes we have to stay in the situation anyway. Those times are hard. I’m not sure if I’m sitting waiting for the train wreck in front of my eyes or just watching the sun go down. The one thing I know is that I can’t back away or for that matter, turn my back. It’s really hard to handle those situations. Much as I like having control in my life, I realise that I can’t have control over everything (damn it!) and I have no control over the lives of those I love. I simply have to watch.

With all these things going on this week, I’m starting to think I need some help. The atrociously awful internet relationship has had a huge impact on my life in so many ways, and while I have dealt with so much of that in the past year, I am still find it incredibly hard to trust people. Anyone. Fairly intense paranoia would be a good description and I can feel myself pulling away from humankind. I realised this week I might just need some help with this. Maybe I can’t do it on my own. So I’m thinking about whether to go back to therapy for a while.

I’ve done a lot of therapy in the past and I don’t think I need anything long-term, but I am starting to realise that I can’t do this alone. It is too big. Too much went terribly wrong and it’s finally dawned on me that it is too much for this one woman.

I’m not sure how I’m going to make therapy happen, but I realised one thing this week…

When something bad happens in my life, I can use it as an excuse to destroy me… or I can get back up, tend the wounds and keep going.

If more therapy is what I need to be able to keep going, then I will find a way to make that happen.

And if anyone says “that’s nice, dear“…

♦

“Another page turns on the calendar, April now, not March.

………

I am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world… I spun out of control. Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.

I wanted to swallow the bitter seeds of forgetfulness… Somehow, I dragged myself out of the dark and asked for help.

I spin and weave and knit my words and visions until a life starts to take shape.

There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn’t matter anymore.

I haven’t shared this journey on this blog, mostly because until now I didn’t think it was my story to tell. I posted Grieving For My Red Balloon about a year ago, but that is as far as I went. It was a very carefully constructed attempt to say “help, I’m hurting” while strangely enough trying to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes. Was I kidding? Avoiding trampled toes? It was far too late for that. But then I was still being manipulated… into silence. That was all part of the game.

I’m healing now and part of that includes claiming this as my story. It doesn’t belong to anyone else because I’m the one who lived it. I’m the one who was played with like a toy. I was a game. Manipulated, abused, lied to and cheated on. It’s my story and I’m choosing finally to share it with you because I can.

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

― Anne Lamott,Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

♦

♦

I’ve been kissed by a…

Rose

Monster

Person With A Mental Illness

Take your pick. You could say that I have been kissed by all three. I could go with the words of the song. If a man can be a rose (and why not?), then that is exactly how he seemed. He was a beautiful person with a very loving heart. Caring, understanding of me and my world, he promised he would never play games with my heart. He challenged my thinking and he supported my growth as a person. He wasn’t perfect, like any of us but he was a person right for me.

But later I’d know that I’d met a ‘monster‘. His term, not mine. Personally I don’t like calling human beings monsters, regardless of what they might or might not have done. But I’m using the term here simply because he used the term of himself. I regularly told him that to me he was no monster. Actually he still isn’t (in my mind).

Eventually, what I only knew is that I had kissed a person with a mental illness. For that matter, so had he. No harm in that. Is there?

♦

Here’s the story,

Back in 2012 Blogger (boy) meets Blogger (girl) in comments section of a Third Blogger’s Post.

(BTW Third Blogger has no responsibility for anything here, except for yet another very thought-provoking post or two.)

Each blogger liked the other’s comments and so a friendship developed, followed quickly by a romance. I should add here that we were many miles apart, me in New Zealand and him on the other side of the world. Neither of us were looking for any kind of relationship, let alone one on the internet. Surprise!

We lived happily ever after…

Hang on a minute. That’s how it seemed. We were both very happy and eventually we spent some time together ( I went to visit him) and after that we were planning on a life together. And this wasn’t an impulsive thing, it was all carefully considered.

It was what we both wanted. I was his ‘soulmate‘. That’s what he said, regularly. I’ve never been too sure on the whole ‘soulmate‘ terminology but if there was such a thing, then this was him. He was the ‘one‘ for me. I was never more sure of anything. My gut instinct told me that this was right.

Then one day he announced to me via the internet waves that we treasured so greatly, that he was “too sick to be in a relationship“. Time out was what he wanted. My compassionate heart sprung into action and understood completely. I thought it was a break (that’s what he said) and that we still had a very bright future ahead of us (together!). Yes, it would hurt but it seemed like the best thing for a apparently very depressed man.

Just days later though, he announced to his Facebook friends (including me at that point) that he had a new ‘soulmate‘. He was in love with another woman (any mention of me was completely gone). And they were very happy together. To add to it, she was married. That didn’t seem to be an issue though. Two relationships gone with one hit.

The short version of the rest of the nightmare is that as well as cheating on me, he had lied. Actually he had lied the whole way through the year long relationship. Everything was a lie. He had manipulated me for his own deceitful purposes. He had abused me in more ways than I care to count.

I discovered that his diagnosed mental illness was not Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) as he had always said, but was Antisocial Personality Disorder (that’s right… sociopath/psychopath).

It all hurt like hell. I felt deranged and paranoid. I no longer knew what the truth was. I didn’t know what to believe. Just how he wanted it. Perhaps worst at that time was that I couldn’t go bang on his door to find out what the heck was happening. I eventually learnt many things. Others I simply pieced together. And yet others, I will simply never know. One of those big revelations was the reason why he would never have visited me in New Zealand. It boiled down simply to the fact that he is a convicted criminal and wouldn’t have been allowed into my country. He had never admitted that.

♦

So that’s the very brief story of the last two years of my life. I fell in love with a man who simply didn’t exist. Oh sure, there was a man, complete with body, but aside from the body, everything was fake. Everything he said to me was simply a story, all part of the game he was playing. The extent his lies would go to was simply limited by his acting abilities. And even before anything went wrong, I knew he would make an excellent actor.

Of course all this hurt. I cried and screamed and yelled and felt so empty, used and abused. Now days I’m moving on, but it hasn’t been easy. It was far from easy and very traumatic. I’m still working on recovering, but I refuse to be held back by this anymore. When I think about all that I have been through the fact of loving someone who really didn’t exist is perhaps the hardest. I had no desire for the true person revealed. That person I felt angry towards and then sad for. Incapable of a real relationship. But I still loved the person I thought I knew. How do you grieve for someone who wasn’t ever there?

Yeah, I guess I was kissed by a monster (his words, not mine).

Does it seem a little strange that I’m sharing this now, particularly when I’ve said so little in the last year? I have realised that by staying silent, I am allowing myself to be manipulated further. I need to speak up to claim back control on my life. I have only shared the barest detail. There has been so much more, but that detail is not important. I am simply saying this is my story to tell to whom I chose. It’s not done in malice but rather in claiming back my voice and with it some peace for myself.

♦

“Just like there’s always time for pain, there’s always time for healing.”

It doesn’t take much, and more often than not, it’s something quite innocent. There is no intent to harm or frighten me, but yet something takes me back to live trauma all over again. In spite of the time gone past, the hours in therapy, the healing and forgiveness… it can be the most innocent thing and it feels like I’m right back there again.

For me, there are such triggers as:

A smile from the ‘wrong” shape of lips.

A chance comment (which probably had nothing to do with me).

A television/movie segment that springs from nowhere.

Watching something happen in the street.

A physical resemblance

A part (or even just an observer) of a conversation.

A touch.

A lie.

And many more, usually random events

There’s so many more things that can trigger that emotional response in me that take straight back to the scene of the trauma. It happened to me yesterday. Little warning but bang, and I was scared and I was frightened. I was ‘back there‘ with the person who had perpetrated my trauma. I was re-living it all over again, although I am clear that this was never the intention of the person that triggered me. Actually they had no idea.

Thankfully I was at home (on my computer actually) and could retreat to my safe place (in my bed with heavy covers over me and my teddy bear by my side). Safe, where I know there is nothing of which to be frightened. I can feel it physically and emotionally. I know this routine well. Thankfully a few words from a very dear friend also encouraged both that sense of safety but also affirmed that what I was feeling was valid. Perhaps the most important aspect for me in that particular situation.

Eventually my safe place worked and I could feel okay about coming out from there. But I was shattered for the rest of the day. If you’ll excuse another earthquake metaphor, it was like the remainder of a day after a large quake. Shaken, bruised and wondering what the hell would come next. Wandering around the house, starring at damage, not quite sure what to do now.

I know this well, and you will too if you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I’ve learnt the routine that works for me (eventually) and I know I simply have to get away from the trigger, and get to a safe place (for me). But you know, what gets me everytime (after many years of this) is how the trauma keeps coming back. How frightening it is… everytime. That’s apparently the burden of PTSD. While I know the triggers don’t affect me quite so often, it seems to come back full force, every time they do. Not to mention how for some of us we seem to collect more trauma as we go. That is so not fair.

When trauma takes me back I feel anything but ‘normal‘ (for want of a better word) yet I know only too well that it is ‘normal‘ for so many trauma victims. This morning, by chance my friend Michelle of Crow’s Feet (who knew nothing of yesterday) shared in my email an article about transforming trauma into creative energy and action. It couldn’t have been better timed, thanks Michelle. It wasn’t just the idea of transforming the trauma but the accompanying story of the therapist who came through the Holocaust and used her trauma to help others as a therapist. It inspired me. I’m not sure yet, how to make this happen for me but I like the idea and am sharing it with you. The link to the article is:

On a good day she would kiss me back: transforming trauma into creative energy and actionby TED COMET

I’m okay today. Just being cautious of screens I look at and people I see. I know it’s a random thing. No one meant be any harm. It was just my brain travelling back, and ouch, sometimes that hurts.

♦

“He asks, in a softer voice, “Does your arm still hurt?”You touch it with your hand. The big ache is gone, leaving only the little, underneath ache that will gather and swell against the bone. The blood leaks out of the vein where he grabbed you. But you say, “It’s better now.”

Today, in Australia and New Zealand, we commemorate Anzac Day. It is a national day of remembrance in both countries that broadly commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders (including animals) “who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations”. It particularly honours those Army soldiers who served at Galliopli in 1915.

There are many commemoration services held around both countries and at Galliopli, but I have to admit that it’s been a while since I have been to one. I simply don’t ‘do‘ crowds. That doesn’t stop me from remembering though. While I am an advocate of peace, I have great admiration and respect for those who have served in the past, and those who still serve. I just hope and pray that one day such service will no longer be necessary and we will find a way of living in this world in harmony.

My chief memory relating to Anzac Day lies with my paternal Grandfather. Let me tell you about his war service. Don’t worry. It won’t take long.

My grandfather joined the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) Intelligence Division as a Lieutenant to fight in World War Two. He was stationed at home in New Zealand but was required to go overseas regularly. He was injured in an accident (in New Zealand) and those injuries left him unwell for the rest of his life.

That’s it. We don’t know anything else. In the approximately five years my grandfather served, and in the years after, he was never allowed to tell anyone of what he did, and where he went. Granddad died about 25 years later and took his secrets with him.

It strikes me this year as I remember him, and others who served, that the trauma they witnessed must have been immense. Now days we are becoming more aware of the affects of the trauma soldiers face. We recognise the existence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the havoc that can play on their lives in the years following their service. I know we still have a distance to go in understanding the need for help and treatment but awareness in itself has to be good.

But today, I am struck by the lack of this knowledge and understanding back in the time my grandfather served, and before in previous wars. I suspect war was very different then, to what it is today, but no less traumatic. Not just for those who served either.

My father was a child at the time his father was away at war. Neither he, not my grandmother were allowed to know anything. Not then, not ever. The hardship and fear they must have carried with them must have been huge. Remember too, this was a time of no emails, no Skype, simply no communication but the odd letter.

My grandfather, and many others with him, lived both then and into the future with no assistance in dealing with what they had seen, done and heard. The affect on their lives must be beyond our modern comprehension.

Granddad died, from his war injuries when I was three. I have just one memory of him playing in this front garden with me.

♦

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”

That was my 86-year-old mother’s question for me when I arrived at her home a few days ago. I was astounded that she didn’t know. It was pretty much ‘the’ topic here in the past week.

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the deadly earthquake that struck my city of Christchurch at 12.51pm on 22 February 2011. Naturally the anniversary has been in the news this week, but Mum couldn’t remember an earthquake being at this time of year. Actually, I was really thankful. This woman had lost so much in that earthquake. More than most. She deserved to have it lifted from her memory for a bit. I was glad, for once, that she had no idea what I was talking about.

As we then talked, her memories came back, but we had over 12,000 earthquakes over a period of about 18 months so it wasn’t surprising that she couldn’t remember one of them. Then she was confused as to which quake she had fallen over in. I assured her that in that quake, thankfully, she had already been sitting down when it struck and she managed to remain in her chair as her home fell to pieces around her. My father though, was thrown to the floor. So was I.

River of Flowers, Heathcote River, Christchurch, 2013 (Used with permission)Image credit: River of Flowers, Healthy Christchurch and Avon Otakaro NetworkSee: Healthy Christchurch on Facebook or their website Healthy Christchurch

As part of a range of commemoration events in the city, there is one that I find draws me each year. The River of Flowers is an opportunity for the public to share their experiences and hopes for the future by throwing a flower into one of the two rivers that flows through the city, and by writing a message of hope and tying it to a tree as various points. Throwing my flower into the river which has always been important in my life, is for me, letting go for a few moments of the sadness, trauma, loss, and worries about the future. It feels healthy to me, and I like that.

Natural disasters, like our quakes, happen across the world all the time. Something that had never occurred to me until I lived through this, was that the aftermath goes on for years to come after a disaster. When the media and their cameras have all gone away, and the rest of the world isn’t hearing anymore, the sad reality is that people go on suffering.

Three years on and my life is still unsettled (to say the least). I now have a chronic illness (fibromyalgia) which is attributed to the trauma of the quakes. I live in a severely damaged house and still have no idea how that will be fixed. My house is pretty cold in winter because of the damage, but aside from that, I’m simply used to the damage. That said, don’t suppose for a minute that I like living in a house that is now tilted on a bit of an angle. Or the curtains blowing in the breeze even though no windows are open. But it’s just life here in Christchurch and I know there are people here worse off than me.

I know full well that mental health is a major issue in my city. Children are still badly traumatised, as well as many adults. Free counselling sessions just don’t go far enough. Three sessions per person is not enough. The use of anti-depressants has risen significantly. The psychiatric hospital is overflowing and they’re talking of putting inpatients into caravans out on the lawn. Suicide statistics tend to run behind by a few years, but I understand the numbers are sadly picking up in my city. Let’s not forget too, that there is a major housing shortage here now as well as significant poverty. These both contribute to the state of mental well being.

But this is what really disturbs me…

A year before our deadly earthquake, Haiti (Port-au-Prince) suffered a quake too. 220,000 people are estimated to have died on 12 January 2010. In Christchurch, there were officially 185 people died. At the height of the Haiti quake, one and a half million people were displaced and sheltering in tent villages. That’s just huge. And it makes me say “what have I got to complain about?”.

While I wonder about the ongoing mental health of those who lived through the quakes here in Christchurch, I wonder even more what is being done for the people of Haiti. Do they get access to free counselling like we have? Are the children getting the resources that are being pumped into Christchurch. It is so difficult to know what is being done for victims of natural disasters when the lights go off on the media bandwagons. That said, I have a fair idea of the answers to my questions.

Whether it is an earthquake (or 12,000), a volcanic eruption, a hurricane, a bush fire or any other devastating event somehow we need to remember that life afterward is changed and will probably never be the same again. Not just the physical welfare of victims matters, not just the infrastructure and buildings that have to be rebuilt, the mental health of victims will continue to be a major issue for years to come.

Somehow I think we forget, once the media have gone, and even more so we forget when the media never really got there. It seems to me that third world countries recovering from disaster, do it very much on their own.

While today, I remember a day I never want to experience ever again, I want to remember people in other countries doing similar recoveries. I have been fortunate to have access to welfare, Red Cross funding and the like. I never ended up in a tent city. I have insurance cover to rebuild my home (when they finally get to it). But for so many people there is none of this, and those people are the ones I have on my mind today.

♦

“How strange it (the earthquake) must all have seemed to them, here where they lived so safely always! They thought such a dreadful thing could happen to others, but not to them. That is the way!”

It’s pretty clear to me that readers of my blog from United States outnumber all other countries by leaps and bounds, and because of that it’s important for me to say that I know what I am about to say might not fit too comfortably with those readers. I know my country of New Zealand and yours, are quite different. It is over twenty years now since I visited your country and I know how different what I saw then was from where I live. Even though we might look the same, or similar, I think it is fair to say that our culture and society is quite different. This post, which is basically about the use of guns, is not my attempt to sway your opinions on gun laws but rather I want to acknowledge that your environment is different to mine but clearly both have some issues to address in terms of guns.

In the past few days, New Zealand has been rocked by the news of the murder of two children, aged six and nine, (by their father) followed by the suicide of their father in Dunedin, one of New Zealand’s four largest cities. It was not a mass shooting. It is 24 years since we had a mass shooting in New Zealand (Aramoana, 1990).

The father shot dead the children in their beds, before turning on gun on himself. Those children come from a school now in mourning, and while I hate to say it, I suspect this type of incident happens every day in your country. In my country though, it is not common, thank God. The mother of the children, the man’s ex-wife, had run next door to get help. It’s hard to begin to imagine the hell she must be going through now.

The man apparently had a mental illness and was on medication for it. To his family’s knowledge he did not have a firearms licence, necessary in New Zealand to own a gun. It’s hard to imagine how he would have held a licence with a string of breach of protection orders in the past year. Questions that are all being asked now.

Personally I am very glad that it is not easy to obtain a gun in my country. I won’t pretend to be anything other than anti-guns, although as I said already I recognise that my society and yours are quite different. But I will always stand up for more control on gun ownership. I have no desire to live in a world where owning a gun is necessary, or even desirable.

I was 15 years old when my ex-boyfriend J loaded a rifle, gave it to me and told me to kill him. He didn’t want to live if I wouldn’t be his girlfriend. He owned a gun (he was 18 at the time) for hunting but I strongly believed both then and now that he should not have access to one. Why? He was too impulsive. I knew he could shoot himself, or me for that matter, without too much thought. The thought would come later, when it was too late. And that is the problem I have with guns. Act now, think and get the facts later.

I can still remember thinking how easily it would be to pull the trigger. By then J had been creating a lot of problem for me by stalking. Fear thankfully got the better of me, aside from the fact that I’m not the sort of person who could fire a bullet at anything, anyone. Harming anything is difficult for me. I just wouldn’t do it. Instead I dropped the gun and fled, running about three miles home. He followed me on his motorbike. Who knows where the gun was by then. I didn’t stop to ask.

In spite of the fact that I would have arrived home hot, sweaty and out of breath I didn’t tell anyone what had happened. My family was all home, it was Saturday night, and no one knew a thing. It was many years before I ever let that burden go by telling my family (when I wrote my book). The trauma of that night was something I carried with me from then on. I didn’t tell anyone because I thought it must be my fault. What’s more I had been told I must show Christian compassion to J, and frankly that seemed so unfair. It still seems unfair and totally wrong to me. I hate the thought of people being guilted into this Christian compassion.

That night was over 30 years ago now and, in spite of a lot of therapy, I still carry it with me when I see things like the Dunedin shooting reported.

It’s too easy to pull a trigger. From what that man had with him, he had apparently gone there to burn the house down. Who knows whether the shootings were part of the deal. Maybe it was simply too easy. I don’t know, and I guess no one will ever know.

I don’t want to get into a gun lobby debate but when this story hit me I needed to say that while I hate that those children have died, and I hate that their mother is now alone, I am very glad that guns are not common in New Zealand. Tragedies like this happen but not often. Thankfully. Frankly I wish it was harder still to get our hands on guns here. I simply don’t believe there is a need, although I accept that maybe your country is different.

♦

“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”

Today in New Zealand, is Guy Fawkes Night. It’s a tradition that is celebrated in a number of countries and has its origins back in 1605 when a man by the name of Guy Fawkes, attempted to blow up the British Parliament. Apart from the fact that New Zealand is part of the British Commonwealth, I really don’t see why we still ‘celebrate’ it. Afterall it’s nothing to do with my country is hardly an honourable event.

Celebrations come complete with bonfires and fireworks, and what kiwi child can’t remember their father tying Catherine Wheels to the clothesline, and setting off Skyrockets out of the old glass Fanta bottles? The fireworks were always pretty but the fear of the noise and fire was overwhelming for me, and I was usually glad it was over. The bullies after school would set off Double Happy and Tom Thumb firecrackers, throwing them at anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time. Again, not something I enjoyed. Thankfully firecrackers are no longer legal.

Nowadays there is a move to official, public firework displays down at our local New Brighton Beach. I’m quite okay with those, although I don’t ‘do’ crowds so tend to stay away. Crowds in the dark, with loud explosions, is not my idea of fun, even if it’s professionals out on the sea lighting the fuse. But still many people choose to let off their own fireworks in their backyards, and last night it seemed that my whole suburb was doing this (perhaps leaving them free to go to the official display tonight).

Yesterday wasn’t one of my better days. Actually on the fibromyalgia front, it was a pretty good day (finally) but there were a few emotional triggers, a few ghosts from the past, that set off several (private thankfully) meltdowns of tears. It was one of those days I didn’t want to be awake anymore so headed to bed early. Unfortunately at the same time my suburb was letting off fireworks.

See? I can admit it. I’m scared of the dark. Actually I wasn’t as a child, but as life has gone on and trauma has come my way I have come to dread the dark. I simply don’t like not being able to see what is around me. I need to be able to see if there are any threats to my safety or sanity. Some nights are better than others but last night was one of those where I was sleeping with the light on. What’s more I couldn’t bring myself to close my eyes. I desperately needed to see. That doesn’t help in the getting to sleep process.

As I lay there, trying to go to sleep, fireworks were exploding nearby sending both light (through the curtains) and noise into the room. I was anything but relaxed. I knew it was probably a window of about half an hour (as it went dark outside) that the fireworks would continue. I grit my teeth (don’t tell my dentist) and sat it out.

“Someone once told me that none of us are actually afraid of the dark; we’re scared of what it conceals from us. We’re afraid of having something with the potential to hurt us standing right before our eyes and no registering it as a threat. People can be like that too.”

- Unknown

For me, these words are quite accurate. I wasn’t scared of the dark as a child and generally wasn’t an anxious child. I’m 48 years old now and I struggle to sleep in the dark. Even my darling L (who, by the way, turns three next week) sleeps in the dark, with an occasional visit from mum. But not me. I go through stages of needing a light on somewhere, but right now it’s not a good stage.

I have learned what the dark contains, and what is hidden in the shadows. I have learnt that there are people and things that can hurt me. I have only just got over the whole ‘earthquakes in the dark‘ thing that has been hitting my city for three years now. Imagine a 7.1 quake in the dark if you can, and you soon learn of what you are scared.

More recently though I have discovered there were people standing right beside me, that were a threat to me… but I had no idea for far too long. They were there to abuse me, and lie to me, determined to ‘play’ with me and perhaps even destroy me… and I had no idea. Let me be clear. I knew they were there, but I had no idea they were such a terrible threat to me.

That’s why I’m scared of the dark. I need to know what, and who is there. I can’t close my eyes because I might miss their approach. Now that I know of their existence and threat, I can do (and have done) what I can to protect myself. But trauma has visited me again, and I remain fearful of anything else that might seek to harm me.

I have some work to do, but meanwhile the light stays on.

♦

“There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.”

If you’ve been following my posts (and I know how hard it is to stay updated) you will know that, for a variety of reasons, I have been having a tough time lately. Because of the need to protect privacy I haven’t been able to go into the details of what’s been happening. Regardless of that, you as readers, reached out to me in the past few days in a way that has left me feeling very blessed.

The support I have had through, both this blog and, other social mediums has been amazing. Thank you so much. You remind me that human beings are really very good beings, and that we are lucky to have each other.

Something that has really helped me is the number of people who have told me recently that I, through this blog, make a difference in their lives. Wow! I don’t care about being ‘freshly pressed‘ (okay WordPress, go ahead if you insist, but it’s not what I’m here for) and I don’t feel the need of thousands of readers. If I make a difference in simply one person’s life? Then that is absolutely enough for me. That makes it worthwhile. More than worthwhile. So thank you to those of you who took the time to tell me how my blog helps you. That helped me enormously.

Actually Sunday, the day I last posted, was the first day I had felt some peace for several months. Nothing was fixed, healed or even put right. But I knew I was supported, and that was enough

But unfortunately this time there is the ‘otherwise’. Sometimes we do things with the best of intentions, and in those times we would never mean for anyone to be hurt. But sometimes because we don’t know all the facts, or the history behind the situation, or even the personal histories of the people involved… it can backfire. We meant to support, but in reality, harm was caused.

This is what has happened for me this time. I’m not upset with the person involved (I don’t actually know, or want to know, who it was) but some things were said in support of me, which actually triggered a whole lot of historical fears and worries and well as some interpersonal issues I could have done without. Think Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). These traumas have a habit of repeating on us, often when we least expect it. Especially when we think we’ve finally got through it. Slam! And it’s back in our faces again.

I’m only sharing this because it has been a lesson for me, and I thought maybe someone else might gain something from it. It’s one thing to be careful with words that we use, but we also need to think through the consequences of what is said. Sometimes that’s out of our hands, but other times it is in our hands. I also don’t believe that we are responsible for the actions of the person we speak to, but I do believe our words and intentions should always be made with kindness and compassion as their core.

The person involved could probably have never foreseen what happened, but that simply reminds me that we need to be aware of what we don’t know.

I am very blessed by the support I have had, and that includes the person who spoke up seemingly on my behalf. I appreciate the good intention and so thank you. I guess we just need to be careful with each other in so many ways.

♦

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding… And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy”

Across my life I have had many people try to define who my friends should be. Some were successful in their attempts, probably because I wasn’t strong enough to stand up for what I wanted and for what I knew I should have.

As a child, I had a number of adults who deemed that their offspring were not allowed to be friends with me. What had I done wrong to get this judgement? I was a Preacher’s Kid, and Preachers Kids had a reputation for being ‘off the rails‘ and generally a bad influence. I wasn’t ‘off the rails‘ at the time, and if anything their offspring were probably a bad influence on me. But the ‘jury’ had me announced to be bad news, simply because of my father’s profession, and so it was difficult to have the friendship we might have wanted.

As a teenager, and then as an adult, I spent many years being the victim of two stalkers. Society seems to have this idea than stalking, and being stalked is a bit of a joke. It’s not. Among other things it plays serious havoc with the mental health of both the stalked, and the stalker. Stalking is never a joke!

It was difficult not to let my friendships be defined by the actions of these two men. Friends were an access point to their victim, and so I constantly had to be careful about who I spent time with, what I told them and where I went with friends. Some of my friends at the time were amazingly supportive, and I will always feel much gratitude to them for the way they supported and protected me. But other friends fell by the way side. It was simply necessary for trying to maintain that mental health, but I feel sad that I have missed out on much because of this.

By the time the stalking terror was over, I was married and again, I was told who my friends should and shouldn’t be. Perhaps most memorable to me is the friend who was ‘barred’ from our house, particularly while my husband was at work. She was barred because she smoked (he didn’t realise that I had started smoking by then), she too had a mental illness, and perhaps the most dastardly ‘deed’ was that she was a lesbian. All of that made me more angry than ever, for so many reasons. This particular attempt to define my friends very nearly ended in tragedy. Thankfully it didn’t, but it was certainly not without lasting harm to both of us. And to my marriage, which is long since over thankfully.

All of this came to mind in a disturbing manner this week when I discovered (I’m probably months behind most people) that Facebook has decided for itself who my ‘close friends’ are. What’s more, without my permission, Facebook will tell these ‘close friends’ of my activity on Facebook. The cringe factor sky-rockets for me instantly, and what I want to do is run as far away as possible from Facebook.

This might seem extreme to many, but not for me. Again, I am being told who my friends are, and scarily similar to the many years I spent being stalked, I find that those ‘close friends’ get information about me which I have not agreed too. Remember too that these ‘close friends’ are not my close friends. A few maybe, but they are simply Facebook friends I have contact with regularly on Facebook.

I object strongly, Facebook.

Now that at least some of these people get a notification when I am ‘on-line’ (even though I permanently have the chat function turned off), I am starting to feel stalked again.

People know what I am doing, and when I am doing it. This is the scariest thing when you have been stalked. The stalker knows more of what I do than even I know. Somehow they seem to know before I do something. They constantly know everything, and I have little or often no power to stop that. I am left with that familiar feeling that there is someone standing outside my windows just watching me. I lived with that reality for 15 years, and many years following as I tried to recover from the trauma of living this way.

Yet again, my friendships are defined by others. Just when I’m learning to define myself, I have a social media that wants to do that for me. That completely freaks me out. It seems that I have little control over who Facebook determines to be my ‘close friends’ and I have no control over what they get told about what I do.

This time social media has gone too far for me. I know that most people won’t even get why I am so disturbed for by this, and in a way, I am glad because it tells me you haven’t had to live as a prisoner of another. As for me though, I need to work out what to do. I can’t live like this. Time for some thought.

But I still want to finish with a wonderful piece of music, shared with me by my good friends at Bullying Is For Losers It’s a message I needed to hear yesterday, and will probably need to keep listening to. I’m not going to hide my True Colours. Somehow I’m going to find a way through this.

Archives

Something I’ve been thinking about…

"Forgiveness is a strange thing. It can sometimes be easier to forgive our enemies than our friends. It can be hardest of all to forgive people we love. Like all of life's important coping skills, the ability to forgive and the capacity to let go of resentments most likely take root very early in our lives."

Who am I?

My name is Cate Reddell, and I'm from New Zealand. I write about life as it happens, with a particular interest in how I continue to recover from chronic mental illness and maintain a satisfying and fulfilling life while battling chronic physical illnesses. I use my blog as my opportunity to think out loud. Join me and see where I go.

A contributing author to A Canvas of the Minds

Infinite Sadness… or hope? is part of Blog For Mental Health 2014

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Post navigation

This Blogger Supports Those Who Battle For Recovery From Self Harm

Where things stand on copyright?

If you wish to use my work please ask me first, as it is Copyright (c) Cate Reddell, https://infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com/
Thank You.

The photo used as the banner of this site is:
Daisies in a back garden, Birmingham, UK, 13 April 2006.
Photo: Paul Reynolds
Edited by: T. Demand
http://www.faunaflorawallpaper.com/viewer/wallpaper.php?/daisy/1600x900x100/daisies-ccby-PaulReynolds
This is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License.